The most important relationship is the one with self.
As a kid I wanted to die, I hated my life, I was born to parents who didn’t want me, had a stepfather who used to beat me with a belt. I dreamed of jumping off a cliff, without a parachute. In my 20’s, as I started my metaphysical journey, I realized that loving myself was important. I learned that if I couldn’t love myself, no one else would either. I learned that in order to truly love someone else, I had to love myself. Thus began my love with self.
My husband never understood that. He suffered as a child of abuse as well. Did he love himself? I think not much, though he loved me as best he could, for 30 years. He committed suicide after an argument. That put me into a tailspin of no longer loving myself. How could I have been so insensitive that he would choose death over continuing to love me? Through his suicide I have learned many lessons. One is that words have meaning. Being mindful of the words I use is something I work on regularly.
I didn’t talk very nicely to myself after he took his life elsewhere. I was already suffering from a self misdiagnosed cancer. Being forever the Pollyanna, when we had gone out onto the internet to see what this spot was on my face, basal cell carcinoma is what I chose. After he took his life elsewhere, and the Universe guided me back to Hawaii, I had an biopsy done and it was wild cell melanoma, one of the most virulent and deadly of cancers. I thought with every new tumor that popped up, that I was supposed to go join my husband. But my friends who loved me hung unto me, telling me that it was not my time to go. They said things to me like “I wish you could see yourself as others do”. They encouraged me to love myself again.
It took several years before I could love myself again, to recognize that his death was his choice. It was his time to go. It was a couple more years before I said Yes to Life and recognized that I have a purpose in life, which is to share my story of hope and resiliency.
2015 is when my lover, my partner, my husband of 30 years took his life elsewhere. In 2018 I started loving myself again. It was 2019 when I said Yes to Life. In 2020, my goal for the year was to find unconditional self-love. I am grateful for covid-19 as it forced me to slow down and go within. I always knew the answers were within, but I was afraid to look at some of them. By doing that, I found what I was looking for.
I now love all of me; the good, the beautiful, the hard and the weak. I’ll not say bad as I know those “little Jackie” times are the hurt inner child that just needs love. I know now that I was not abandoned by anyone, ever, even though it felt that way. People do the best they can in any given situation. Allowing that in others allowed it within myself. Through that deep dive within I found who I am and was able to embrace the person I am. I am still a work in progress as they say. But today, I love myself unconditionally.
